Martha was great at getting all her things done, all the obligations and duties of life, but she didn't know how to put that aside when Jesus was right in front of her and fulfill and function in the bigger picture duty and responsibility of what Jesus was calling her to do: the one thing like Mary did, sit at his feet.

Peter was a Jew and his ministry was to the Jews, but taken to the extreme, he excluded the gentiles and Paul called him on it. Paul says in Galatians 2:11-13:

Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here's the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That's how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that's been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.

Remember David's story in the Old Testament. He was certainly a gifted leader of the people. Yet his same quality for good leadership could not go all the way into his own life, so the Bathsheba and Uriah story happened in which good leadership did not go all the way.

Our perversion of our talents and character can often be a hindrance to what Jesus is really asking us to use them for.

What parts of your life (your character, your personality, your gifts and talents) are you not implementing when it comes to the important things?

It looks like this:

|-------------------------------------|----|

Our whole talent is 100% (point to point).
Where we fall short of our whole talent is often in that last 10%.

May I suggest that perhaps the reason we have our talent in the first place is for that last 10%?

Ouch.